Self-criticism, when it isn’t useful, is self-hypnosis.

I have been pondering about the correlation with critical thinking, self-awareness and outright cynicism and suffering. I reckon: while critical thinking is the pivot of life, we ought to be conscious about the tipping (toppling) point that’d avalanche, leading us into an abyss. Knowing thyself is good. Knowing thyselfie, and doing so at the edge of a cliff is good for nothing. At the best, it will kill us.

It’s as though the act of self-correction is an unstoppable force, only landing us in the numbing land of destructive masochism. This is death that’s not liberating. It’s a suicide that’s asphyxiating. One right question can beget the truth. Can we craft the art of critical thinking and remain unscathed in this life time?

In reality, we literally know nothing about ourselves. We wrongly judge not only ourselves but also everyone around, who are ever-tainted because of the misplaced self. The self can only be known but not judged. Isn’t it a Shakespearean tragedy? It perhaps is a divine (romantic) comedy.

In testing the limits of our human existence, we should not lose the humane and the life. We may want to think of a world in which joyfulness is embraced with lesser suspicion. For centuries, the classical art around us has been two dimensional: sadness and suffering. It has been beautifully presented to us as the deeper thought and meaning of our existence. Art must reflect the truth. The state of truth is always blissful.

Think of it. Self-criticism, when it isn’t useful, is self-hypnosis. Every day ain’t a judgment day. A sad mind is a haunted palace. Suffering is judgement without an argument. It’s either a life sentence, hanging on the dogma to death. In the end, all of us die. But before the inevitable, for whatever its worth, we must give a chance to gratitude –a subtler form of self-centered thought, praise and joy — the finer aspects of the critical mass of profundity.